Inside a sick mind

I don't really know how to write about this kind of stuff. Writing has always been easy for me, but when it comes to me talking about myself, it's always been a struggle.
I don't know when   all of this happened, or rather ; I don't know when exactly I became awqare of my mental illness... It seems like it's always been there.
I've always known there was something 'different' about me, I suppose. I just assumed that I had a few quirks, funny little things that made me unique.
I've always had this issue where I over-idealize people and events, but I just assumed it was a healthy fixation... Even though I'd grow to despise the very things and people I worshipped, and it never took long for that
transition to take place. It always felt like there was this switch inside me, that I couldn't touch. Since I was a child I've felt that there was something strange about me, I couldn't always control my emotions or thoughts.
I would cry when it appeared that nothing was wrong, I would get angry and throw my pillows around my room and begin to scream in frustration, even if I had a good day.
My emotional behaviour doesn't always match how I believe I REALLY feel deep down inside. If I'm happy, sometimes I still seem tense, I become very quiet, distant.

I could probably write a whole book on how I hate being sick, how I truly believe I am sick. I feel like I don't just have the label of BPD stamped on my forehead, but I also have this bright neon warning sign, I feel like ever since
my friends and family became aware of my diagnosis, I've become unnaproachable. My family has said before that I am unstable, that I shouldn't be left unattended with my own child, who is in care... I have been told it isn't safe
for his well-being because I am unpredictable, and that there are "safety concerns". My own family act as if they are intimidated by me, they have called me many names before, and accused me of many things.
I have been told I am extremely manipulative and conniving, that I am deceitful, that I am cunning. I have been told that I like to argue, that my anger is a worrisome thing.
My friends have told me time and time again that I overreact, that I tend to obsess with events and people, that I hold unnusual, and unhealthy grudges against people over such petty little things. I have been pushed away, in
a sense. I have been cut off from a lot of the people I once had in my social circle, because they no longer want to hear about my complaints, they no longer wish to be involved with someone like me.

I can't have a healthy relationship with anyone, I never have. I have been on and off in every romantic tie I've had, I argue, sometimes I physically attack the person I swear to love and protect. I become unstable because I
depend so much on that other person, that being more than a few hours without them makes me hostile. I become obsessed with my significant other, I become controlling, manipulative. I don't know why it happens,
but it always seems to. I feel like I have to push people away, like some type of screwed up self-defense mechanism. Scare people away, by any means necessary.
People call me crazy, and lately it feels like I am. I've been arguing a lot lately, I've started becoming inconsolable, moody and probably slightly scary.  I fight myself with two simple needs that conflict each other.
I want to be left alone, I want to be alone, in silence with my own thoughts. But, on the other hand I don't want to be alone at all, not even for a second because the isolation scares me.

Friday, June 28th was the last time I had a mental breakdown.
It was bad... especially considering that I have absolutely no clue how it even started or where it came from. All I remember is that I was microwaving tea in the kitchen, and then suddenly I couldn't stop crying.
I was sitting on the kitchen floor, my hair tugged by my clenched fists, my jaw clenched tight, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip as tears streamed down my face while I choked in loud sobs. It felt like the world was ending.
I didn't want to get up, I didn't want to move. My head started filling with nightmarish thoughts. It was as if there were voices screaming at me " No one's coming to save you. Do it." And suddenly I caught myself staring
at the steak knife that laid on the top of the counter. I got up and ran as fast as I could to the bathroom and shut myself in, sobbing in a fetal position with my cell phone clutched in my hand. I fought myself, I fought the horrid
temptations and I won. I texted and called as many people as I could think of, asking for help. I even considered calling the psych unit in the hospital for help, but being locked up in a pyschiatric ward isn't exactly my idea
of self-care. If anything, it would probably drive me more insane.
Feels like I'm insane anyways. I was accused of guilt tripping by many of my friends because I was begging to have someone be with me in those terrifying moments. I felt like I needed to have someone be there just to
supervise me, to talk me down, to help me calm my anxiety, to silence those horrible voices. To hide the sharp objects so I wouldn't be tempted to self harm. No, instead I was told that I was pulling some type of a pitty party,
because I couldn't handle being told to go home and take some time to myself, because I felt I was being rejected. That's not it though! I like being left alone some times, but Friday was a bad day for that.

Some days are better than others, some days I wake up happy, and full of energy. I get up and I shower and eat and then I get a hold of a few friends and I socialize. Most days however, are not like that.
No, Most days I wake up, and roll back over and hide under my blankets, wanting the misery to stop. So I go back to sleep. Most times it feels like I'd rather face the biggest, nastiest monsters in my nightmares than face the
real monsters that exist in my head. I feel like I'm freaking INSANE! I have rage fits, typically in my room where no one can see me, but I pull at my hair a lot and I bite my lip until the anger and rage leaves. These episodes are
short, but usually caused by a nagging thought that I'm being rejected, that I'm disgusting, that I don't deserve love or happiness.

I have a hard, very hard time coping with reality, and often times because of that : I can't seperate reality from illusion. The world isn't unicorns and rainbows, but it doesn't have to be dark clouds and creeping shadows either.
I started falling apart in 2013. I gotten out of a horrible, physically abusive relationship and started healing, I started focussing more on my son, and did the best I could to keep him happy. That summer, I got a job at 7/11, and
I started feeling more responsible, I felt happy! I was being mature, I was being a proper adult! But then, along came this super-flirty co-worker and next thing I knew, I was distracted. We had an affair during that summer,
I started thinking I was addicted to him. Everything we did was exciting and new. He was sweet and witty, and always made me feel like I was some sort of goddess. I started spending all of my spare time with him,
I even skipped work just to sleep over at his house, I would be there, with him for days on end... I wouldn't answer my phone, I didn't even tell my mother where I was... And she was babysitting my son.
I started abandonning the both of them, I was working overnight shifts and sneaking off to my lover's house as soon as my shift was done.  Then, he moved to Alberta and I was crushed. I didn't know what to fixate myself on.
I forgot how to be a mother. I lost my job due to my mother finally putting her foot down and refusing to babysit (thank God. I needed a reality check) My sleeping pattern was stuck on sleeping at 10am and waking at 8pm.
During November of 2013 I started having mini-episodes where I snapped.

I would shout at my son simply for waking up at 7am, I didn't want to go outside for days at a time. I wanted to lay in bed and do nothing. I felt miserable and lazy. My son suffered so much because of that.
I began to realize I was screwing up as a parent, and that I was screwing up my son's life by being verbally abusive. He was terrified of me! I needed to change!
I started working on my temper, but in January of 2014, when my son was supposed to have a sleepover at my aunt's during my first ultrasound... MCFD showed up at my door and informed me that I would have to be
supervised with my child, and that there was a VERY high chance of my unborn child being placed in custody of another family member as well.
I felt like I was going to choke to death on my own tears, it felt like my heart had literally fallen out of my body. I didn't want to breathe, I didn't want to think. I wanted to pinch myself just to see if it were really happening.
Unfortunately, no amount of pinches would wake me from that nightmare. This is the very reason I typically don't get out of bed until 4pm or later.

The pictures hang on the walls, my beautiful babies and their innocent little cherub faces smiling out at me. The life I could've had. I could've been waking up at 6am, breastfeeding my daughter while my son had his cereal,
and getting them dressed while watching cartoons before bringing my son up to Kindergarten, spending the day with my daughter. Finger painting and reading and doing puzzles, watching cartoons and singing funny riddles.
Tucking my babies in to sleep at night, singing sweet lullabies, none of that will ever be my life. Once upon a time it was with my son, but it will never be with my daughter. I will never have my children back in my care.
I am unfit.

I put way too many things before my own children, I obsessed with toxic men, I fought self-harm urges, I am still struggling with learning to love and accept myself. I'm still teaching myself to be alone for a few hours.
I am fighting the anxiety that isolation brings. I am working on not being so paranoid. I am trying not to fixate on people... It isn't easy.
The littlest thing seems to cause me to bawl my eyes out or clench my fists and start growling threats. I see other people walking around town, pregnant women rubbing their bellies. I feel pain, and jelousy.
Bet they get to keep their babies with them. It aches, physically for me. I feel this hole in my heart, and my stomach twists in knots.
Sometimes I consider moving to another town, or just isolating myself so that I don't have to see anyone's stupidly happy faces staring at me.
I want that kind of happiness, I want peace... but I feel like I can't let go of my past. I don't know how to heal from the things I've gone through.

Not sure if my past is rellivant in this whole disability form thing or not, but while I'm reminiscing in the painful pasts, why the hell not?
I need therapy, I know this much. I'll be meeting the 11th Therapist/Counsellor/Psychiatrist/Psychologist so far. I've been in counselling for family issues. Daddy was schitzophrenic and liked to drink, and dabble with drugs.
He also beat my mother, which my sister and I witness. He started individual counselling, moved into his own place after the split from my mother and he was doing good. He was happy, and funny and he paid attention to me
and my sister more. My mom believed he truly changed. He moved back in with us, and things were okay at first but then suddenly there were holes in our walls, burn holes in our furnature, and he was never anywhere to be
seen during the daytime. May 28th, 2006 my father took his life at just 40 years old. I was 14, I was the last person to talk to him when he was having a freak-out episode. I told him to go to hell. I hold on to that guilt even today.
I feel like I'm partially to blame. I'd do anything just to hear his voice again. I loved my father. Maybe I idolized him a bit, but it seems like he'd be the only person in the world who wouldn't judge me for being mentally ill.
That July, my half-sister ( father's kid) and her disgusting, piece of vermin boyfriend Earnest molested me. It took TWO YEARS for it to finally go to court, and the sickest thing is, he was brought up on charges for breaking and
entering, assault with a deadly weapon, illegal possesion of a knife, and sexually assaulting a minor. He got a grand slam total of 2 years in prison, and got out on an early release for "good behaviour."

In 2009 I was happily expecting the birth of my first child, at 16 years old. I miscarried at 3 months, and the medication that was supposedly meant to make the "fetus" come out in small clots, well it didn't work.
That precious little baby came out in the amniotic sack, umbillical cord still intact. I held that cold, lifeless body in my hand and sobbed, apologizing profusely for failing it. I decided that if it were a girl, I would've named her Hope.
In 2010, as I started recovering from PTSD, I ended up getting pregnant for the second time. This time, The baby was healthy and showed no signs of being at risk.
September 1st, 2010 I was roughly 7 months pregnant. That was when Jason raped me, and tried to tell me he loved me and that he wanted to raise my son as his own. I called the cops the next day and filed charges.
The police officer kept asking me if I was sure that it wasn't consentual, and that pregnant women are full of sexual hormones so it was "okay" if I got aroused and couldn't control it. The officer actually treated me as if I was the
guilty one! He even went so far as to threaten to use a polygraph test on me. Needless to say, Jason walked free. Untouched. His repution unscathed. I was scared to even step foot out the door of my house after that.

I am slowly recovering. I still have little things that trigger a full-blown mentdown, where I punch and flail and scream, and curl into a fetal position.
I have times where I wish I could just sign up for electro-shock treatment and burn those memories out of my head... but I'd never go through with it. I know that I need to mvoe on, that I need to heal on my own time...
But I worry I never will.

I feel as if I can't function. I get paranoid at the way people look at me. Maybe it's my disgusting chipped teeth, maybe it's my stupid lazy eye, my dumb hair cut... who knows.
But I hate the way people look at me, I hate those fake smiles, the pretend conversations, small talk that wastes time, trying to mask the uncomfortable awkwardness.
I'm always stuck worrying "can they HEAR my thoughts?" because they're so loud. I worry constantly if people are faking their friendliness.
I worry that people don't trust me.
I am a mess. "go to work, go to school, get therapy." It's not that easy for me to get my life in order. I know I need to, I'm trying.
I feel like no one wants to help me, but everyone wants to boss me around and tell me how to run my life.

See, I hide everything under a thin layer of confidence and contentment. I pretend that I'm okay even when I'm panicking on the inside.
If anyone were to know that I'm really this screwed up, I'd be locked up in a psych ward, alone... Isolated.
I hate my disorder, because I feel like it's ruined my life.
I need help fixing that.

- Deven Melanson MacDonald